


Chëla

by YdrittE



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Shape of Water, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't Worry The Character Death Is Somebody Who Totally Had It Coming, F/M, Manipulation, Other, Sign Language, Sort-of Mind Control, mute character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21923617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YdrittE/pseuds/YdrittE
Summary: Movement out of the corner of his eye catches Cloud’s attention, but he doesn’t miss the smile appearing on Sephiroth’s face. The tank is not empty anymore.The thing inside seems to be watching them, focused and motionless as it hovers near the glass. Its eyes find Sephiroth, then the device on the table. It raises its hands, holds out the left arm and makes a sweeping motion up and down it, from wrist to elbow and back, with its right hand.‘Music’.“What the fuck,” Cloud hears himself say.
Relationships: Jenova/Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	Chëla

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sephinova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephinova/gifts).



> So yeah… welcome to the Shape of Water AU absolutely fuckin NOBODY asked for that I am providing anyway because apparently this is the hill I’ve chosen to die on. Based a bit on the movie and a bit on the novel, and a bit on NBC's Hannibal for certain details. Merry Crisis, everyone!
> 
> The title is an old high-german word for “throat”, for thematic reasons and also funsies. I study languages, can you tell?

The room is bare in that impersonal, professional way normally reserved for brand new office spaces. A single table with a chair on either side, pale grey walls, slightly dimmed fluorescent lights on the ceiling. There’s a camera, too, somewhere. He’s sure of it, and doesn’t dare look too hard.

They’ll find that suspicious, won’t they? If he seems too nervous, they’ll think he had something to do with the… the Incident. Which, well, he _did_ , but they can’t know that, or he’ll end up like all the other troublemakers over the years, disappeared by the Turks and probably handed over to the lab people for experiments. Not the most desirable end to his life.

It’s hard to tell time in here, but they’ve kept him waiting for at least twenty minutes by now, he thinks. Is it a tactic to scare him? If it is, then it’s kind of working. But that, too, they cannot know. He won’t give it away. He _promised_.

Still, he can’t help but jump when the door opens suddenly, loud and jarring after the silence of the interrogation room. A young lady in a suit walks in, kicks the door shut with her heel, stares at him for a long moment before pulling back the chair across from him to have a seat and neatly setting down a file and pen in front of her. She checks her watch, notes down the time and date, and then turns her focus on him.

“Cloud Strife?” she asks, though it’s less a question and more a demand for confirmation.

He nods. He doesn’t trust his voice just yet.

The Turk lady notes his name down in her file. “State your employee number, occupation within the company, and the floor as well as room number of your sleeping quarters.”

Cloud takes a deep, calming breath and does as she asks. His voice sounds steadier than he feels, but given that he _feels_ like he’s about to be shoved out of a plane without a parachute on, that’s not exactly hard.

“Tell me your whereabouts yesterday between 7 and 9pm.”

Cloud licks his lips. “I was, uh. Just leaving my post. Had guard duty in the labs, on floor 68. Took the stairs down to floor 60 and went through the auto-security to punch out for the day. I was running slightly late, so there was barely anyone around anymore. The lights went out, but I couldn’t hear any sort of commotion or anything. There was no contact from my superior officers on how to handle the situation, so I waited at the security point until the power came back and then, when I wasn’t contacted to extend my shift and assist in any way, I went to the infantry dorms. I stayed there the rest of the night.”

He’s not technically lying. He’s just leaving out the part where, when the power cut out, he punched out with the only other card left in the racks as well. No way to get in or out of the labs without leaving a paper trail.

The Turk is noting something down that he can’t read from where he’s sitting. He hopes it’s nothing incriminating. “Did you see anything suspicious, before or after the blackout? Anything out of place, out of the ordinary?”

Cloud pretends to think for a moment, then shakes his head. “Not really, no. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I could tell. Apart from the blackout itself, that is.”

“Were you acquainted with Soldier 1st Class, Sephiroth?”

Oh gods.

“No. Can’t say I was. I saw him at a handful of ceremonies and one or two times in the labs while I was on guard duty, but apart from that I didn’t have anything to do with him.”

That would have been the truth. Up until very recently.

The Turk nods and makes another note. Cloud strains his eyes to try and read it, but she looks back up and he _can’t_ let her know he’s scared. He can’t. They’ll see through him and make him disappear.

“Did you see Sephiroth during the blackout?”

And there it is. This is where he goes from omission to open lies. “Yes, he passed the auto-security just after the lights went out and headed further downstairs. He looked like he was in a hurry, so I didn’t approach or anything.”

He just hopes Sephiroth will provide (or has provided, given that he was probably one of the first to be questioned) a similar enough account for their lie to not be revealed.

And apparently, he did, because after a few more questions about details and exact times and who he talked with that evening, he is told to report anything suspicious, to keep his eyes open, to take care and remember that his loyalties always lie with the company.

And then he’s out.

Cloud keeps the mask of calm up right up until he’s standing at Zack’s door. His friend opens at the second knock, face tight and cautious and then grinning when he sees who it is. “Hey, Spike. How was the interview?”

“Terrible.” He doesn’t dare say more. He may be involved in this too deeply to get out at this point, but that’s no reason to get Zack in trouble, too.

“Yeah, same here. But how ‘bout you come in so we can complain about it in the company of likeminded individuals?”

Cloud has no time to wonder about what that’s supposed to mean before Zack pulls him over the doorstep and he takes in the scene in front of him. Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos, the former sitting tensely with an enormous frown on his face and the latter lounging like a particularly self-satisfied cat on Zack’s narrow sofa. In the doorway leading to the bathroom stands Sephiroth, sans the usual coat (Cloud is definitely not staring at his abs. No, sir) and dripping water onto the wooden floor. His arms are wet up to the elbows. And behind him, peeking out from Zack’s unreasonably large bathtub…

“What the fuck,” Cloud hears himself say, and hears Zack snicker behind him. His eyes find Sephiroth’s, whose usually so serious face seems to be positively glowing with… something. Cloud thinks he knows what it is, but the word still sounds too new, too alien to use for. For whatever this is. “You could have fucking _told_ me my best friend was in on it, you moron!”

This is no way to speak to the unofficial head of Soldier. Cloud doesn’t think he cares right now.

“I wasn’t, Spike,” Zack tells him, the grin in his voice evident even without turning around to see it. “Believe it or not, I stumbled into this whole mess by accident.”

That sounds like something Zack would do, Cloud has to admit. He feels the beginning of a headache taking form behind his temples. “Well, congrats. You now have Shinra’s most prized scientific asset, over the disappearance of which the entire company is in chaos, sitting in your bathtub. Now what?”

‘Now,’ Sephiroth spells, slow and clear, instantly commanding the attention of all those present so very effortlessly, ‘we get her out.’

-

-

-

The routine of Sephiroth’s life is a never-ending series of deadlines, loosely held together by food, sleep, fighting and Genesis reciting poetry while Angeal cooks dinner, occasionally accompanied by Zack, who has infinite patience when it comes to chopping onions and absolutely none when it comes to Loveless. Sephiroth, to Zack’s great confusion, loves both those things equally.

It’s because one occupies his hands and the other his brain, so he doesn’t need to talk, he would tell Zack if he ever asked – which Zack doesn’t, maybe because Sephiroth is famous (infamous?) and strong and tall and Zack isn’t good enough at sign language yet to keep up with whole conversations. He’s learning, though, and that in and of itself makes Sephiroth think they might keep this one. Angeal certainly wouldn’t be opposed.

Sephiroth’s circle of friends is small and tight-knit, a meagre collection of individuals who actually bothered to learn sign language when they met him. Not the most refined standards for friendship, but Sephiroth can’t afford to be picky.

Beyond that circle is a handful of people whose job it is to communicate with him in person – the leaders of the PR department, who talk _at_ him more than _with_ him but still need to comprehend his objections to certain things; Lazard, who has such high ambitions that he refuses to not be competent at anything; Tseng, who already knew how to sign before joining Shinra and no one has been able to coax the reasons behind it out of him so far; and of course Hojo, who learned it by proxy while teaching it to Sephiroth back when it became clear their greatest project didn’t possess vocal cords.

Hojo didn’t believe the x-rays, claimed it was sabotage, a trick, double agents in his ranks, and Sephiroth still bears the marks from the anger-fuelled surgery he – thankfully – doesn’t remember. When he woke up from the anesthetic, Hojo _did_ believe it, but that didn’t exactly make it better.

The scars still itch on bad days, red and angry against the pale skin of his throat. Hojo always advises him to cover them up, which is one of the reasons why Sephiroth doesn’t. He has nothing to hide from people, doesn’t care if they’re staring, if they’re wondering. Nobody ever asks him anyway. People know not to talk to Sephiroth. Everybody knows.

It is thus a surprise when, instead of standing still and letting him pass, the footsoldier guarding the door Hojo is behind steps in his way.

“Sorry, sir. You do not have the proper clearance to enter this room.”

He sounds young, but sure of himself. Maybe new to the company and ignorant enough not to know who Sephiroth is, hard as that may be to imagine.

‘I don’t need clearance. I can go anywhere in the lab. I grew up here.’ He’s signing purposefully fast, movements curt and irritated to get across the meaning even if the soldier can’t understand the exact words.

Though to his great surprise, the soldier sighs. “You can go anywhere in the lab except for this room. Hojo said not to let you through.”

‘Why?’

“I don’t know. I guard doors. People don’t make a habit of telling me the reasons for it.”

Sephiroth is about to raise his hands to form a retort, when suddenly from inside the room a loud rattling noise, a crash and then an animalistic screech almost immediately followed by a human scream can be heard. The soldier’s mouth, visible under the helmet obscuring the upper part of his head, presses into a thin line. “Hold on,” he instructs and steps away towards the number pad next to the door, punching in a code (Sephiroth remembers it more out of habit than out of any conscious effort) and stepping inside while the heavy iron door is still sliding open.

There’s the sound of hurried footsteps approaching – other people have heard the commotion – and Sephiroth stands back and tries to be invisible as Hojo stumbles out the door cradling his right hand, unnaturally pale and covered in blood but still spitting orders while being escorted away. In the middle of all the excitement, nobody notices Sephiroth slipping through the doorway and into the room.

The soldier turns around when he hears him. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” is all he says.

Sephiroth shrugs. ‘The asset in here attacked Hojo. Too dangerous for a single footsoldier.’

“Sure, whatever. It lunged for the door and bit off some fingers when he got in its way. Didn’t eat them though, according to the assistant, so holler if you see them lying around anywhere, will you? Since you’re here anyway.”

The soldier doesn’t seem to realise what he’s said, just turns to carefully step around a pool of blood, keeping his distance from the tank taking up most of the room. Sephiroth doesn’t see anything inside it, but that means nothing except that the asset is smart enough to know how to hide.

The fingers eventually turn up, already growing cold and stiff when Sephiroth picks them up without hesitation. The soldier makes a noise of disgust. “Hold onto those; I’ll go get a bag or something.”

He’s out the door before Sephiroth can even nod. It slides closed behind him.

Silence settles over the space, interrupted only by the soft lap of waves at the open top of the water tank. Still nothing moving inside it, though the water is too murky to see all the way through to the other side, so maybe that’s where the asset is. Sephiroth quietly hopes the thing is restrained somehow, lest it try to make a break for it again. Hojo losing fingers is painful and annoying. _Sephiroth_ losing fingers would be a disaster.

He looks down at the digits once more, vague nausea coiling in the pit of his stomach.

 _It didn’t eat the fingers. It wasn’t hungry_ , his brain supplies.

 _Then why did it bite?_ asks the voice in his head that sounds like Hojo, curious and detached.

Sephiroth’s gaze sweeps over the entirety of the room, the tables, the tank, the blood on the floor, and comes up empty. _They were hurting it_ , he eventually decides, but the words ring hollow and don’t quite sound like anybody.

There’s something hard wrapped around one finger, a narrow gold band covered in slowly drying blood. A wedding ring.

_Never knew Hojo was married._

Sephiroth pulls off the piece of jewelry, turns it between his fingers.

 _Who the fuck would want to marry Hojo?_ asks the voice that sounds like Genesis.

Sephiroth has no answer for it. He slips the ring into his pocket. He turns, another sweep of the room – and freezes.

The tank is no longer empty.

He didn’t hear the waves in the tank break in their rhythm, didn’t see movement out of the corner of his eye (he hadn’t turned away completely, had kept it in his peripheral vision out of caution, he’s sure of it). Yet it wasn’t there and now it is, humanoid in shape, yet so inhuman at the same time, covered in scales that shimmer green, then blue, then silver, light catching and reflecting like a kaleidoscope. Its eyes are dark and unblinking, holding his with a cautious intensity that seems familiar in a way Sephiroth can’t quite place.

He doesn’t feel the bit-off fingers slip from his grasp, doesn’t realise he’s moving until his hand comes up to rest against the glass and the creature is close, so very close on the other side of it, close enough for Sephiroth to see his own reflection in its eyes. His heart is hammering in his chest with excitement, joy, sudden recognition and the subconscious, instinctual understanding that it – she – wasn’t lunging for the door. She was lunging for what was _behind_ it.

The blaring alarm that signals the door is about to open pulls him out of his stupor, and he stumbles back while the creature slips away from the glass in a single graceful movement, disappears from his sight.

The soldier marches in with a lab assistant in tow. “He found the fingers,” he says and points at Sephiroth. Sephiroth realises very suddenly that his hands are empty.

He points at the floor, where the fingers lie in the pool of blood, and stands by mutely as the assistant gingerly collects them in a plastic bag. The soldier thankfully keeps quiet, right up until they step out into the corridor and the assistant hurries off.

“Why did you drop them?” he asks without preamble. Not accusing, not angry. But still just a bit too perceptive.

Sephiroth stares down at him. Very slowly, he raises his hands. ‘I saw the creature in the tank. She startled me.’

It’s not technically a lie. But the unofficial head of Soldier, battle-hardened and trained from earliest childhood, would not be startled to the point of dropping _anything_ , ever. And they both know this. The soldier stares from under the helmet for a few seconds before sighing and shaking his head. “You know what? Whatever. I’m not being paid enough for this kind of nonsense. Just go back to your job and I’ll go back to mine, and I’ll pretend like you’re not acting weird as shit.”

He goes back into guard stance next to the door, and Sephiroth takes his leave without another word from either of them, feeling eyes burning into the back of his skull all the way down the corridor.

-

-

Cloud isn’t stupid. He knows there’s no way to hide the fact that Sephiroth has entered that room, despite all of Hojo’s orders. The lab assistant might tell, or one of the other guards, or _someone_. So he notes it down in his incident report (Soldier 1st Class Sephiroth insisted on joining the cleanup effort and could not be dissuaded) in the hopes that the blame won’t fall on him if anyone takes notice. He’s a grunt, what’s he supposed to do? Hojo is too busy recovering from acute loss of fingers to look deeper into it.

A week goes by, and Cloud has almost convinced himself he can put the whole ordeal behind him and move on with his life, when the universe reminds him he is its least favourite person. Thursday is night shift guard duty (already atrocious in its own right). The prospect of eight hours of boredom and hurting feet make Cloud’s step heavy as he approaches his post, yawning already.

The door is just sliding shut as he rounds the corner, the alarm echoing down the empty corridor as it dies away.

Someone is in the room.

Cloud stands frozen, wracking his brain in an attempt to remember the testing schedule of this particular specimen, and coming to the inevitable, terrifying conclusion that nobody is supposed to be in there. Not at this time of night, on this day of the week. Which means that whoever is in there is trespassing.

Cloud lets the air escape his lungs with a deep sigh, frustrated and mildly upset that the already awful experience of night shift guard duty is being made even worse by something actually happening. Why couldn’t people try to steal Shinra’s secrets at a time when he’s more awake and willing to get into a fight?

…then again, it might just be Hojo, back from the med wing to let out his frustration on the thing that put him there. In which case, Cloud _really_ doesn’t feel like interrupting. Though the company would have his head if he let some intruder get away because he was scared of the head of the science department. So all in all, there are only wrong choices to make.

As quietly as he can, Cloud creeps closer to the door and puts his ear against it, straining to listen for any indication as to who (or what) might be inside.

Music.

Dim and almost inaudible through the heavy steel door, but that’s definitely music. Cloud doesn’t recognise the tune; it sounds like some sort of old-timey waltz, with a high, clear lady’s voice singing along to the melody. The words are unintelligible.

Cloud is pretty sure Hojo doesn’t listen to music (like, _ever_ ) and that any intruder in their right mind wouldn’t be stupid enough to risk getting caught over something like this. But then…

An idea rears its head, and Cloud heaves another sigh. He pulls away from the door, steps up to the locking mechanism, punches in the code. The alarm blares painfully loud in the silence of the labs, deserted as they are. Cloud steps inside.

At first glance, everything looks normal. No chaos, no blood, no destruction, no bit-off body parts. But the music player that stands abandoned on one of the tables gives it away. The song is still playing. Cloud resists the urge to sigh again.

“Why the hell are you in here?” he calls out, feeling slightly foolish. Sephiroth might already be gone. He grew up in the lab, he said. Plenty of secret paths to stumble upon that a mere footsoldier wouldn’t know.

“Last time you saw it, it had bitten off half of Hojo’s hand. Why are you serenading it?”

Something stirs in the back of the tank, too deep in the shadows to see clearly. Cloud tries not to pay attention to the fear crawling down his spine. He takes a step forward, further into the room. Behind him, the door slides shut, and the alarm goes silent once more. If something happened, it wouldn’t open fast enough for him to get out in time. He might lose more than fingers.

A soft click echoes, and the sudden silence is deafening. Cloud spins around, hand on his rifle. Sephiroth is standing next to the music player, one long finger delicately holding the needle so that the record turns untouched, the song continuing inaudible. They both stand frozen for a moment, before Sephiroth pushes the needle aside and lets go of it, and raises his hands.

‘The last time I saw her, I brought her opera. When she attacked Hojo was the last time _you_ saw her.’

Cloud wants to protest (he didn’t even see the creature then), except the words die on his tongue as he realises the meaning behind Sephiroth’s statement.

“How many times have you snuck in here?”

Sephiroth shrugs. ‘Probably too many. But I never got caught.’

“You did now.”

The shift in mood is almost imperceptible, that ever-so-slight drop in temperature as Cloud’s brain belatedly informs him that he just all but threatened to snitch on the most powerful Soldier in Shinra. Sephiroth hasn’t even blinked.

‘Don’t tell Hojo.’

Cloud shakes his head. “As if I’d ever voluntarily start conversation with anyone working in the lab. But you do understand that I could get in serious trouble if I fail to report this, and it turns out you caused damage or whatever while I was supposed to guard the room, right? Besides, this thing is dangerous, and Hojo probably has a good reason for not wanting you in here.”

‘She may be dangerous…’ A few short huffs of air escape Sephiroth, almost a noise but not quite, and Cloud realises with a startle that this is probably his version of a chuckle. ‘But so am I. And she doesn’t attack unprovoked. I promise.’

Movement out of the corner of his eye catches Cloud’s attention, but he doesn’t miss the smile appearing on Sephiroth’s face. The tank is not empty anymore.

The thing inside seems to be watching them, focused and motionless as it hovers near the glass. Its eyes find Sephiroth, then the device on the table. It raises its hands, holds out the left arm and makes a sweeping motion up and down it, from wrist to elbow and back, with its right hand.

‘Music’.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Cloud hears himself say.

Sephiroth does that soundless chuckle again, and reaches for the needle. A different song fills the room, strings and flutes and no lady voice, but the thing (the creature, person, whatever it is) doesn’t seem to mind, just snaps its webbed feet and does a graceful sort of pirouette underwater. Dancing, Cloud thinks. He wonders if Sephiroth would dance too, if nobody was here to watch.

“You’re teaching it… her? sign language,” he says numbly, and rubs his eyes when Sephiroth nods. “Ok, sure, whatever. I’m not even gonna ask how that came about. I assume Hojo doesn’t know? That she can talk, I mean?”

A firm shake of the head.

“’Course not. He’d go fuckin’ ballistic if he did.”

‘He doesn’t know how much she understands.’ Sephiroth’s hands hesitate in midair before continuing. ‘But I understand her. And she understands me.’

Cloud’s chest contracts painfully with the memories of the fleeting look of surprise on Sephiroth’s face when he realised Cloud knew sign language. Stuck in the labs, unable to communicate, to voice his thoughts. It’s not particularly hard to guess why he empathises with this creature in particular.

And Cloud knows what he has to do.

“If you get caught, you’ll never hear the end of it. Hojo will make sure of that. Unless…”

Oh, he’s going to hell for this. This is the stupidest thing he’s ever done in his _life_.

“Unless you didn’t have to sneak around the guards. If you visited while I was on guard duty, nobody would know.”

One time, the higher-ups can forgive. Slip-up, easily explained, quickly forgotten, no harm done. But _this_. 

‘ _You_ would know.’

“I would know,” Cloud concedes. ”But I’m nobody. One of hundreds and thousands of faceless footsoldiers, barely more than cannon fodder should the time come. Just some guy standing in front of a door carrying a gun. I may be able to talk, but that doesn’t mean that anybody’s listening. So why bother?”

A terrible decision, dangerously close to treason. But Cloud can’t get the image of the creature, with its arms outstretched, signing ‘music’, out of his head.

Sephiroth smiles, fleeting and barely there before it disappears again. ‘I’m listening,’ he tells Cloud with such utter sincerity it should be ridiculous, but really isn’t. ‘So please bother. Bothering makes people care.’

It’s a terrible decision. But Cloud is also pretty sure it’s the right one, so he can’t really get himself to regret it.

-

-

The three days it takes until Hojo returns from the medical wing are, without a doubt, the most relaxed 72 hours anyone in the lab has ever experienced, and more than a few Soldiers take the opportunity to get their biannual check-ups _without_ the head of the lab prowling around being vaguely, unobtrusively creepy. Genesis is among them, and so is Sephiroth, it seems, who – according to a handful of other 1st Classes – was seen around the 68th floor at different, seemingly random times throughout all three Hojo-free days, keeping in the background and not interacting with anyone beyond a nod of the head here and there.

It’s only when some of the lab assistants at their lunch table gossip about seeing him around the week after, and then the week after that, and the news finds its way to Genesis like all gossip does eventually, that he starts getting seriously curious.

Sephiroth had by his own admission practically grown up in the labs and is thus rather intimately familiar with the place – but that fact is always explained with a healthy dose of disgust. One gets the impression he’d rather be literally anywhere else. And now he seems to be gravitating towards it like a moth to the flame, for whatever reason. Fascinating, truly.

Genesis, respect- and tactful friend that he is, keeps his mouth shut and pretends not to notice a thing, content to speculate in the privacy of his own mind. An affair, perhaps, maybe with one of the lab assistants, or one of the less creepy scientists who have a less damaged moral compass than their boss. The idea holds a certain merit, unlikely though it seems. There is a first time for everything, after all.

It’s in the third week after Hojo returned that the mystery reveals itself, starting with perhaps the most unexpected source of trouble. Although it really shouldn’t have been, given that the creature had bitten off two fingers on its first day in the lab.

“The test subject will be moved to a more secluded and heavier guarded facility as soon as possible to avoid further risk to the life, health and safety of the lab staff. It’s been exhibiting signs of disquiet more and more frequently as of late, giving reason to believe its behaviour may escalate if left unchecked,” Lazard explains in the (presumably) top-secret briefing they have been called in for first thing in the morning. Genesis mourns his inability to acquire coffee before being dragged into this.

The fact that the creature will have to be transported in water may present a bit of trouble, but nothing Soldier can’t handle, to be sure. Genesis pays attention to the briefing, and then puts it out of his mind and thinks no more of it, going instead to finally acquire coffee.

He is thus rather surprised when, the moment he clocks out of work and returns to his apartment, his well-deserved downtime is interrupted by a loud knock to his door. He opens it to find Sephiroth on the other side, looking ever-so-subtly upset.

‘Can I come in?’ he signs instead of a greeting, and strides inside the moment Genesis steps out of the way to let him through. There’s a restless energy to his movements, barely contained.

“What has you so rattled, my friend?” Genesis drawls, unperturbed, vaguely amused. “Never seen this look on you before.”

Sephiroth lets out a silent sigh. ‘I need your help,’ he explains, which explains nothing.

“That’s… certainly new. Anything in particular that I can assist with?”

A beat of numb silence before Sephiroth raises his hands in reply, forming words Genesis never, in all his life, thought he’d see from his friend. Not in his wildest dreams would it have occurred to him.

‘I need you to help me distract everyone in Shinra so that I can smuggle Hojo’s least favourite specimen out of the lab.’

Genesis blinks. Then blinks again. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

‘You heard me.’

“I did. But you can’t be serious. Please tell me you’re not serious.”

‘I’m dead serious.’ Sephiroth’s eyes are narrowed in frustration, as if he’s explaining a particularly simple fighting stance to a particularly dense Soldier.

Genesis is still blinking owlishly. “Alright. Why?”

He sees the hesitation on Sephiroth’s face, and in the back of his brain the pieces seem to start falling into place. All the visits to the lab, the briefing this morning, the reason for Genesis in particular being his first choice to talk to. Genesis, obsessed with poetry and hopeless romantic that he is, willing to speak out against Shinra and break a few rules if it suits him.

‘Because I want to save her. Because nobody else will.’

“But _why_?” Genesis pries.

Something close to anger flashes in Sephiroth’s eyes. The movements of his hands are hectic when he speaks again. ‘They’re trying to take her away because they think she’s acting up, but she’s _not_. She’s just reacting to my presence and absence, to my connection with her. Because she _sees_ me. She looks at me, and sees someone complete – nothing missing, nothing wrong. She knows me without even trying, better than I know myself.’

His hands are shaking, and Genesis can do nothing but stare at him. “I never knew you wrote poetry.” He’s not ashamed of the tears burning in his eyes. Why should he be?

Sephiroth gives him a look as if Genesis has lost his mind. ‘I’m not writing anything,’ he explains, with unsteady hands – whether from anger or sadness, Genesis isn’t sure. ‘I’m telling you that I’m scared. Scared of losing her.’

“You’re in _love_ , dear friend.”

‘I don’t need you to tell me that. Did you listen to a single word I said?’

He’s not denying it. Why should he?

“You’re in love, and it makes you write poetry into the air. Does your water lady understand a word of what you say?” Genesis doesn’t miss the glimmer of indignation in his friend’s eyes, but _he’s_ talking now. “You say you have a connection, but does she possess a mind? Is she _aware_? Hojo doesn’t seem to think so.”

‘Hojo is wrong,’ Sephiroth signs, so soft that it would be a whisper.

“That is what you hope, what your perceived connection has led you to believe. You want me to risk my life, my status, my position on this whim of yours?”

He knows better, of course. He hasn’t stood by Sephiroth’s side at dinner parties and watched him swat away admirers like bothersome flies for all these years to believe even for a second that this is a rash decision.

Sephiroth doesn’t _do_ rash.

Sephiroth looks at what he’s got to work with, and then calculates. And he knows the difference between one man missions, and missions that require multiple people. This, it would appear, is the latter.

It is a testament to how well they know each other that the seemingly rude, borderline cruel question doesn’t even faze Sephiroth. He doesn’t grace it with an answer. Instead, he pushes a large, folded piece of paper into Genesis’ hands.

‘Plan,’ he spells. ‘Listen close.’

Genesis looks from the paper – a floor plan of the lab – to Sephiroth, and smiles. His friend came here prepared. Because his friends knows that Genesis is a romantic, and that he’s not above breaking a handful (or a few hundred) rules in the name of it.

“Love makes fools of us all, and we in turn make fools of our friends to aid us. Have you thought about how to make a fool of Angeal yet?”

-

-

This is unprecedented. This is not a thing that _happens_. Shrinra tower isn’t just some outpost, some military camp, which can be attacked, and subsequently lost to the enemy. This is the heart of the company, its lungs, its brain. Its fall is unperceivable, impossible. No hostile force could ever approach it undetected, or infiltrate it unhindered to make a Class A emergency necessary. Which means…

 _This is an attack from the inside_ , Zack realises, with a rush of something like excitement. _An act of rebellion from within_.

He’s moving before he knows it, mind going a million miles an hour. Where’s the point of attack? Where do they have the biggest chance of causing major damage in the shortest timespan?

 _Lab floors_ , his brain supplies. _Hojo’s experiments. The thing that arrived recently_.

He’s running, left and then left again, down familiar corridors as his eyes adjust to the darkness. Steel shutters cover the windows and all doors leading outside. The tower is shut off from the world completely in these kinds of emergencies. Whoever attacks is locked in here with them, with dozens of Soldiers and hundreds of ordinary military. It won’t end well for them, that much is assured. The blackout, though… the blackout is not part of Class A.

The elevators won’t work. Stairs it is, then.

The heavy security door slams open under his force. Zack doesn’t bother slowing down, simply leaps, up three steps at once, lungs burning, adrenaline hammering in his veins in sync with the blaring alarms. He’s so hyperfocused that he almost collides with Sephiroth.

Zack digs his heels in and comes to a sudden stop, salutes out of reflex while his chest heaves. His commanding officer would have had the same idea as him, of course. And the fact that he was going downstairs from the lab floor means that those floors are safe, presumably–

His brain comes to a screeching halt when he sees movement behind Sephiroth, a pile of oddly coloured limbs vaguely blending in with the wall it’s huddled against, opening dark, strange eyes that focus on the two of them with laser-sharp intensity.

_The thing that arrived recently._

Zack meets Sephiroth’s eyes. The only thing he can find in them is urgency, determination. He doesn’t need to sign for Zack to understand what he’s trying to say.

One look from the creature, back to Sephiroth, then back to the creature.

This chaos is Sephiroth’s design.

‘Please,’ Sephiroth signs, fingerspelling for emphasis. ‘You didn’t see us. Just leave, and pretend the stairway was empty.’

It takes Zack a moment to find his voice. “Where are you going?” is all he manages. If Shinra finds out, nobody aiding Sephiroth will get out of it alive. But then again, he has his doubts whether anyone _opposing_ Sephiroth will get out unscathed either. “They’ll find you. You know that, right? You can’t possibly think you can get away with–” 

He stops when the creature stirs, lets out a noise that sounds vaguely like a cough and draws in a rattling breath. Sephiroth takes a step forward. Zack doesn’t back away.

‘Please,’ he signs again. ‘She needs water. She’ll die. No time.’

Zack stares into his eyes, and knows that he has lost. No matter what he does, he has lost. “You need to bring her somewhere they won’t look immediately when the shutdown is lifted. They’ll search your place first. You’re important and powerful. But I’m not.”

He may lose either way, but at least he’s not going to lose on the wrong side. Or so he hopes.

Zack watches in a mix of bewilderment and wonder as Sephiroth turns around and picks up the creature so effortlessly, so gently, before looking back at Zack and nodding. Zack nods back.

This is a mistake. No, worse, this is _crazy_. He’s agreeing to treason against the company, to hiding a possibly dangerous scientific asset in his apartment because his superior officer looks at it like it’s the most important thing in the world.

The creature raises its right hand from where it rested against Sephiroth’s chest, puts its fingertips against its chin and then moves its hand forward and down in Zack’s direction.

‘Thank you.’

Zack’s pretty sure his facial expression must be glorious to behold, if Sephiroth’s silent chuckle is anything to go by, but even that pales in comparison to the almost imperceptible twitch of the creature’s lips as he – almost instinctively – signs back the appropriate ‘fine’.

Oh, he’s going to catch hell for this if Angeal finds out.

-

-

The lab’s been broken into. No camera footage, no trail of destruction to follow. Whoever it was, they knew what they were doing. Angeal stands by and watches Hojo’s exasperated rage until he can’t take it anymore and silently removes himself from the scene and retreats to the relative safety of his apartment.

Neither Sephiroth nor Genesis repond when he knocks on their doors, so it seems pretty safe to assume they’re still caught up in the chaotic aftermath of the blackout. He didn’t see them during first response. Nonetheless, Genesis sounds uncharacteristically cheerful when Angeal calls, hoping to maybe provide his friend an excuse to not get stuck working overnight.

“Angeal, good to hear from you. Did the emergency response go down okay?”

So much for that plan. Sometimes he really has to admire Genesis’ lack of subtlety. “I thought you might want to clock out, but I suppose the that-was-an-emergency-I-need-to-go routine won’t work if they know it’s me.”

Genesis hums. “Not necessarily. You could be calling to tell me bad news.”

“I _always_ tell bad news in person.”

“Right. But I’m not at work anyway, so you don’t need to sacrifice your Soldier honour to give me an alibi.”

There’s a faint noise that sounds like a snort on Genesis’ end of the line, quickly silenced by his friend shushing whoever it is. Angeal frowns. “Where are you? And how did you get out of work that easily with all the chaos that went down?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh–“ Genesis stops, waits a few seconds, then makes another little humming noise. “Yeah, right. Sephiroth says you should probably just come over and that’ll… explain everything. We’re at your puppy’s place. Don’t tell anyone.”

Genesis hangs up without a goodbye. For a few very long seconds, Angeal stands in the middle of his own living room, and thinks. Then he sighs.

They’ve gotten themselves into trouble. Given the recent events, that could mean a number of things. The complete lockdown coupled with the blackout, and their knowledge of what Shinra’s plans to respond to such an attack looked like, would make anything possible, ranging from obstructing safety measures to deliberately setting free scientific assets to mess with Hojo. That they’ve taken refuge at Zack’s place is just the cherry on top.

“Why am I friends with these children again?” he mutters to himself, and shakes his head. Then he grabs his keys and gets on his way, because there’s not a chance in hell they’re getting away with whatever they’ve gotten up to in his absence without him giving _someone_ a lecture or two.

When he arrives, a rather sheepish-looking Zack lets him in and gestures towards the bathroom. “Um, we. Seph brought– Oh, just go and have a look. _I’m_ not gonna be the one to break the news.”

He stays behind while Angeal steps forward, up to where Genesis is leaning against the doorframe, a strange, faraway smile on his face. When he hears Angeal approach, he puts a finger to his lips and winks. Angeal cranes his head to look at what’s inside the bathroom that Genesis finds so delightful.

His world seems to stop for just a second.

“You are _joking_ ,” he shouts, loud enough to startle even Zack (who he now knows was definitely expecting it).

Sephiroth straightens from where he was crouching next to the bathtub, running his hands through the water, carefully avoiding the– the body situated inside there. Which has drawn back and raised the gills framing its neck and face defensively to make itself look bigger, baring its sharp teeth at him but not moving otherwise. Its eyes are wide awake, in a way that seems so very at odds with the reports he’d read after the briefing the other day, which claimed it was catatonic, docile, rarely moving–

He has no time to ponder over it, as Sephiroth takes a resolute step forward, shielding the creature from Angeal’s view (and Angeal from the creature’s) and raising his still-wet arms to get his attention.

Angeal feels vaguely faint. “What have you _done_?” he asks no one in particular. Not that that question really needs answering; the results are obvious, but still.

‘Hojo was going to transfer her to a different lab,’ Sephiroth tells him. ‘He was going to take her away again. I couldn’t let him do that. I’m sorry. We knew you would find out, but if we had told you beforehand, you would have tried to stop us.’

“Alright.”

That’s all he can think of to say. Because really, what else are you supposed to say when your two best friends and your student distract an entire company’s worth of eyes and ears (and guns and swords) while they smuggle one of Hojo’s test subjects out from under his nose and into Zack’s bathtub? Without informing him of any of it, trusting in him to not turn them in when they admitted it afterwards?

“I’m just going to go out on a limb and say that this will work for a week, tops, until they’ve run out of more high-profile places to look and start searching further down the line. And then we’re _all_ screwed.”

‘She’ll be long gone by then.’

Angeal meets Sephiroth’s eyes. “She better be. Because we might be some of Shinra’s finest, but if Hojo finds out, they’ll have our heads in less than a second. We’re not that irreplaceable.”

He doesn’t expect a fearful reaction, and indeed he doesn’t get one. Sephiroth just nods and turns back towards the creature, sinking onto the edge of the tub and dipping in a hand once more. The creature makes a noise like a purr and slides down until its head is underwater, closing its eyes and letting its body go limp, a perfect picture of relaxation. It seems entirely unconcerned with the absurdity of the situation, or the looming dread of being discovered that can only be postponed for so long. Almost enviable.

Though Angeal has a funny feeling he can’t quite explain that it understands more than it lets on.

-

-

“You’ve already gotten her out once. Now you just need to get her out two more times. Without getting caught.”

Sephiroth meets Cloud’s eyes with such serenity, such calmness. ‘I will. Or I will die trying.’

Cloud doesn’t doubt that he means it.

-

-

The clock ticking over their heads cannot be ignored, much as Sephiroth knows the others would love to give him some rest. Shinra aren’t quite sure yet whether or not their asset has been smuggled out, and they need to act while that uncertainty is still present. Search of the tower has only just begun. It’ll only take so long for someone to kick down the door to Zack’s apartment and stumble upon their little group of conspirators.

But even with that ever-looming pendulum swinging, each pass of it bringing closer the moment they’re found out, he can’t shake off the dread of uncertainty. Midgar lies close enough to the ocean that the air smells of salt once out of the city and its awful pollution, and with the right vehicle the time it takes to get there is reduced to almost nothing. It’s what comes before it that is the problem – most notably, the fact that the creature can’t survive outside of water indefinitely, and judging by the strain breathing air caused her during the rather short span in which he got her out of the lab, he’ll need a way to transport her _in water_.

Which is how he finally finds himself back in the lab for the first time since the blackout, blending in as much as he can and trying not to draw attention. He doesn’t get very far before Hojo catches up with him.

“There you are. I was wondering whether you were ever going to show your face up here again,” Hojo greets him, looking Sephiroth up and down in that clinically fascinated way he always does.

Sephiroth doesn’t reply and just keeps walking, eyes flickering over the little plaques next to doors that will tell him where the hydrotransportation tech or whatever the lab people are calling it is being developed. Shaking Hojo off before he finds what he’s looking for would be preferable, but might not be possible, judging by the professor’s valiant efforts to keep up with Sephiroth’s stride.

Hojo either doesn’t notice Sephiroth is trying to get rid of him, or simply doesn’t care. “You haven’t been in the labs much recently. Whatever happened to those daily visits of yours?” he asks a bit too casually.

 _He knows_ , whispers the voice that emerged most recently, the one that sounds like Cloud. _He knows._

Nonetheless, he turns around, and meets Hojo’s eyes as calmly as he can manage. ‘I could only stick around for so long before you figured you could use the opportunity to do a bit of testing.’

Hojo makes a non-committal little noise in the back of his throat. “You always were too clever for your own good. Though I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have had any objections to the tests I had in mind. You remember the asset that used to be housed in this room until two days ago?”

He gestures, and Sephiroth realises they’re standing in front of that familiar heavy steel door. Muscle memory carried him right to the last place he wants to be. But Hojo is still waiting for an answer, so he nods silently.

“Of course you do. You weren’t even supposed to ever enter that room, but unfortunately I was a bit too preoccupied with not bleeding to death to prevent you from meeting her.”

The feminine pronoun tugs uncomfortably at the edge of Sephiroth’s awareness, the realisation that everyone else uses ‘it’ because they don’t know, don’t understand that the creature is more than an animal. But Hojo, it seems, knows.

Hojo _knows_.

“She’s a very special asset, you see. We found her frozen, encased like a fly in amber, because she _wanted_ to be found. Pretending otherwise would be self-deception. Nothing around her happens without her permission, her intent. Manipulation is what she _does_.”

Hojo takes a step forward and Sephiroth in turn steps back. His brain is screaming at him to run, to find the creature and save them both from this threat. Because _Hojo knows_.

“And _you_ ,” Hojo continues, either unaware or simply choosing to ignore Sephiroth’s distress, “you would be the easiest of all to manipulate, wouldn’t you? How long did it take for you to fall for her, for her to convince you that you needed her to be a part of your life? And for her to reach out to your friends, to nudge them into becoming your allies? They all joined your cause the moment they laid eyes on her, didn’t they? Did you think that was a coincidence?”

He can’t breathe. It feels like he’s falling. Hojo knows, has probably known this entire time.

_You need to get away. Find her, and get away._

Is that what he wants, or what the creature wants him to want?

‘Does it matter?’

He doesn’t even realise his hands were moving until Hojo barks out a laugh, and gestures with a look that is almost (almost) pity. “Go. Go to her. Drag her out of wherever it is you’re hiding her, and see if you’ll be able to hold onto her once the rest of Shinra catches up to you!”

Pressure explodes behind his temples, sudden blinding pain and he doesn’t realise his lips are pulled back into a silent snarl, that he has moved, that he’s kneeling on the ground next to a body drenched in red, that there’s blood dripping down his chin and flesh between his teeth and a wet, gurgling hole where Hojo’s throat used to be. The weight of the wedding ring is burning in his pocket, distant and forgotten.

He stumbles back to his feet, the world a blur as once again he moves (this time of his own accord), deaf to the tumult erupting around him, drowned out by the screaming inside his head that sounds like nobody he knows.

He finds himself at Zack’s door, miraculously rid of any pursuers for the moment, without any recollection of how exactly he ended up there, kicks it down and hurries to the bathroom, where _she_ is waiting for him, pulling him close into her arms, a low purr bubbling up from her chest.

The screaming in his head subsides ever-so-slowly, until he’s left shaking in her embrace, holding on for dear life. Distantly he’s aware of the blood drying on his skin, feels more than sees her touch her fingertips to her chin to sign her gratitude.

The dim mumbling pulling at his awareness turns into recognisable words as the world shifts back into focus. Sephiroth turns to find himself faced with a very, very pale Cloud and–

Zack. But Zack like he’s never seen him before, with lips pressed together into a thin, hard line and the warm purple-blue of his eyes frozen into ice. “They’re on the way,” he says. “The trail of blood will lead them right to you. You need to leave, and you need to do it _right now_. And you need to take her with you.”

It’s in that moment that the lights go out. Shutters rattle down over the windows, an alarm starts wailing in the distance. Zack ignores all of it, never breaking eye contact with Sephiroth. “You need to leave. You need to _run_ , right now.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to wrap his arms around the creature tighter, pull her up into his arms just like a few days back. She seems strangely calm in the face of all the chaos, still making that odd little purring noise. Her breaths are slow and even, but he knows that will change soon. Zack is right. He needs to go.

His footsteps are unbearably loud in the emptiness of the hallway, despite the alarm that’s still blaring. Distantly, he wonders where they’ll be waiting, and whether or not anyone there would even understand a word if he tried to explain himself.

Not that he could.

‘My head hurt and then I just kind of mauled Hojo to death’ doesn’t exactly sound convincing, after all.

Except it makes sense, doesn’t it? If Hojo was telling the truth about _her_ , then…

 _Hojo is wrong_ , whispers the voice that sounds like Zack, hopeful and optimistic, so very unlike the one staring at Sephiroth just a few minutes prior. _He’s wrong about her, and he’s wrong about me. And even if he isn’t, then it’s too late now anyway. Because he’s dead. Because I killed him._

He’s at the staircase now, pushing against the door with his shoulder, all the way straining to listen if he hears movement, breathing, the soft click of a rifle trigger. But nothing.

They must be waiting in the lobby, then, where there is more space to maneuver and less of a chance of accidentally hitting an ally in the crossfire. Shoot on sight, probably.

The creature is warm against his chest, still breathing calmly despite how long she’s been out of the water by now. Her clawed fingertips are drawing nonsensical patterns across the side of his neck, catching on the scars but not quite tearing. His heart catches in his throat anyway.

His calves are burning by the time they reach the ground floor, where one door leads to the lobby and one outside, closed off by shutters due to the shutdown.

Except it isn’t.

“There you are! We were starting to think you might not show up, you melodramatic idiot! Angeal’s getting really tired of his pride and honour being used as a doorstopper, so you might want to get out of here before he changes his mind.”

Sephiroth would love to make some sort of witty reply along the lines of ‘the last person allowed to call literally anybody melodramatic or an idiot would be you’, but unfortunately his hands are full, so all he manages is a choked-off huff of air at the sight of Angeal’s sword rammed into the concrete floor, carefully balancing the shutter on its pummel to prevent it from closing entirely. Angeal himself is kneeling next to it, looking prepared to replace the sword in its duty at any moment should it give. Genesis is leaning against the wall and eating a dumbapple because of course he is.

“We’re not even going to ask,” Angeal tells him. “Just go. Write a letter if you can. We’d love to know what Hojo said to deserve _that_ kind of end.”

Outside it’s pouring rain, icy drops hitting his skin, soaking him instantly. His hair clings to his face, his uniform to his frame, and the creature to his neck. She turns her eyes up at the sky, unblinking, breathes deeply once again.

“Fly away now, my friend,” Genesis calls, and then Angeal grabs the sword hilt and pulls, and the shutter slams down with a deafening crash drowned out by a strike of lightning and the thunder following in its wake. He must’ve been counting the seconds before Sephiroth showed up.

He takes an uncertain step, and then another, and another. Shinra tower rises before him, a dark, silent monolith against the occasional flashes of lightning. All windows, all doors are hidden behind steel. They’re all trapped inside, waiting for him. How long until they realise he’ll never appear now?

Sephiroth certainly won’t stick around to find out. He turns, adjusts his grip on the creature, and walks.

-

-

-

the wind tastes salty on her tongue, in her throat, same old fragrance as the last time she was here, the last time she was awake, a memory of violence and death and rebirth and of devouring and now she’s here again, upon the sand as the waves lap at her scarred legs to pull her away, to welcome her back and she to welcome them, to return, regather, reunite—

but _he_ has not let go of her hand yet, has set her down but stays close, afraid of her goodbye that he believes inevitable and she cannot help herself, can’t not tug on his arm, spell out to him F-O-L-L-O-W, lead him away because she _knows_ , she knows, has always known and to her great delight he follows easily, trusts (loses himself) even as the water comes up to lick at his shoulders, his chin, follows as she drags him under with a last deep breath (his final breath, the last he’ll ever take) and floats there motionless while she circles, stretches, no glass between them this time, nothing to stop her as she comes close, takes hold of his neck, her lips on his and he opens his mouth, lets the air escape and _this_ is what she has waited for–

her claws on the sides of his throat, _digging_ in, tracing the fine lines of the scars Hojo left her there, a gift to her even if he did not know it at the time because _nothing_ around her happens without her permission, her intent, and her beautiful creature’s struggle, too, his panic, the water choking him as he tries to scream and fails (she never gave him a voice to scream with), the sweet taste of copper, that is her intent, it is her design, her will that he go limp in her embrace and accept, submit, let her transform him into something greater and make them one—

he opens his eyes and takes a new breath, the first one to match the last one from before, the bleeding gills on his neck flaring with the effort, and surges forward to kiss her again and he’s _hers_

hers, hers, hers, for this is her design and she doesn’t plan on letting him go ever again—

**Author's Note:**

> Would you believe me if I told you that Sephiroth biting out Hojo’s throat was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else? As was Genesis and Angeal waiting at the bottom of the stairs btw, because these characters do whatever the heck they want and I arrive at the end of a sentence to find them waiting right there doing something ridiculous.
> 
> Please go watch 'The Shape of Water' it's a really good movie and everyone involved in it deserves love and recognition for their awesome work.


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